Don't know ‘who’ will win, but here's ‘why’

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By Robert SamuelsonWashington Post Writers Group • Thursday November 1, 2012 5:39 AM

We don’t yet know who will win next week’s election, but we may know why. Most people decided
long ago, probably on the basis of partisan and ideological views or deep personal likes and
dislikes. All we need to explain is why the undecided swung victory one way or the other.

I have dueling theories, depending on who wins. Here goes.

Barack Obama wins: It’s the (recovering) economy, stupid. What seemed his greatest
vulnerability became his salvation.

Beginning in September, the economy took a slight — but unmistakable — turn for the better. This
buttressed Obama’s economic message: I inherited a disaster from George W. Bush; our policies
avoided another Great Depression; the economy is slowly on the mend; don’t mess it up by reverting
to Bush’s policies under Mitt Romney. Similarly, the economy’s modest revival weakened Romney’s
argument: Only new leadership can reinvigorate the listless recovery.

Politically, the most important evidence of economic improvement came from consumer confidence
surveys, which — though historically low — began to rise rapidly. In early September, the Gallup
Poll’s confidence index, which had been declining since June, jumped sharply; the latest reading
for late October was the best of the year. The University of Michigan’s survey also improved
dramatically in September and October. “Overall,” it reported, “consumers were more confident about
economic prospects in October than any other time during the past five years.”

Other indicators also improved. In September, the unemployment rate dropped unexpectedly to 7.8
percent from 8.1 percent. (It had exceeded 8 percent for 43 straight months.) The depressed housing
market showed signs of recovery. The economic bounce seemed almost an act of divine intervention; a
favorable jobs report on Friday would reinforce the effect.

So: The undecided favored Obama.

(Note that it’s possible that statistics are sending a false signal. This has happened before in
this weak recovery. One bad omen: Businesses are less confident than consumers, and this could
dampen hiring. In the quarter ending in September, the economy grew at a meager 2 percent annual
rate. Though better than the previous quarter’s 1.3 percent, this isn’t strong enough to make a big
dent in joblessness.)

Mitt Romney wins: Obama’s campaign to demonize him backfired. Instead of casting doubt on
Romney, it made Obama seem less presidential and offended undecided voters.

Conventional wisdom holds that Romney’s convincing victory in the first debate catapulted him
into a lead over the president. Up to a point, polls corroborated the consensus. Before the Denver
debate, Gallup’s seven-day tracking poll had Obama and Romney running almost even among likely
voters. A week later, Romney had opened a margin that has fluctuated between four and seven points.
Although Gallup’s methodology is criticized for over-weighting Republicans, other polls also showed
a shift. A Pew poll from Sept. 12-16 had Obama ahead 51 percent to 43 percent. A post-debate poll
gave Romney a 49-45 lead.

What the conventional wisdom missed is that the debate tarnished Obama in a second way. Recall
that Obama’s strategy for months had been to portray Romney as a greedy businessman who values
profits over people, parks his wealth in foreign tax shelters and would use the presidency to
enrich the already rich. If the image had stuck, the election would, in effect, have been over.

But when Romney’s debate performance confounded the stereotype — he didn’t appear to be the
selfish monster of Obama campaign rhetoric — the contrast hurt the president’s reputation. Pew asks
respondents to judge whether each candidate “is a strong leader.” Before the debate, Obama led
51-38; after, it was a dead heat at 44-44.

So: The undecided moved to Romney.

(Note that despite the slippage, Obama retained an advantage over Romney on most personal
qualities. In the latest Pew poll, 59 percent of respondents said Obama “connects well with
ordinary Americans” compared to 31 percent for Romney.)